by G. P. Ching
“I am the morning star! I am the leader of all!” he seethed.
Malini recognized the biblical reference. “Lucifer!” she said. Jacob and Mara came up behind her, flanking her right and left. Henry fell back, inching his way toward the door.
“Where do you think you’re going, Death?” Lucifer asked.
Henry froze, his chin lowering. “You know I cannot choose sides.”
“This time my side has chosen for you to stay in this room!” Lucifer seethed. All the doors to the gym slammed shut and locked themselves.
Most of the students had made it into the hall but a few stragglers pressed themselves against the metal bar handles of the gym doors. One of them was Dane. He’d had plenty of time to get away. Malini wondered briefly why he’d dallied, if it was Amy or them he was concerned about leaving.
Lucifer’s eyes burned in her direction and Malini was shocked how much they reminded her of Henry’s. “I invite you to join me, Malini. A second flood is coming and this time I own the ark. Join me and you shall be the new world’s first queen, revered by all. I promise you this. I have seen the future and this time, I win. Come now. Join me and I will spare this girl and your friends.”
The blood increased its flow down Amy’s neck. The top of her white dress was soaked with it. Tears flowed down her cheeks and tiny sobs escaped her. Gathering her courage, Malini walked toward Lucifer, knowing each step could be her last. “You can’t see the future, Lucifer. No one can.”
“Stupid girl. You could be great. You could be powerful!” He grabbed Amy’s chin and wrenched it to the side, eliciting a high-pitched squeal.
Malini shook her head and glanced back at Mara and Jacob. “No, thanks. I’m happy being me.”
“Cord said you’d be self-righteous.”
“There’s one thing Cord didn’t tell you about me, Lucifer.”
“What?”
“I’ve gone through some changes—” Lightning quick Malini grabbed his wrist with her left hand and yanked the knife away from Amy’s throat. She used her foot to shove her out of the way. Beneath her hand, Lucifer’s flesh bubbled against hers.
He laughed and pulled her closer. “You’re quick. But I live in Hell, sweetheart. I love the burn. You’ll see. When we’re home, you’ll come to enjoy it, too.”
She had a second to regret her decision to attack him before she was lying on the floor under a folding chair and Mara was holding her hand. Lucifer was frozen above her.
“Sorry. You’re going to have a bruise tomorrow but I couldn’t touch you while you were touching him or he wouldn’t freeze. I used the chair to knock you out of his arms.”
“Thanks,” Malini said, rubbing a sore spot on her shoulder.
“That’s a very powerful gift,” Henry said from his spot near the door.
Mara jumped, clutching Malini’s hand tighter in surprise. “Why the hell aren’t you frozen?”
“Death stops for no one, Mara. My existence isn’t ruled by time.”
Malini rolled her eyes. “As interesting as this is, can we get the hell out of here?”
Mara pulled Malini over to Jacob, reaching for his hand. He snapped out of it, relieved to see Lucifer hadn’t taken Malini. Next stop was Dane, who woke slower than the others.
“What the f—” His mouth dropped open. Malini felt his grip loosen with his surprise and squeezed his fingers.
“Stay with us, Dane. We’re getting you out of here.” Malini tugged his arm until he nodded.
“Shit!” Mara said, when they reached the door. It was still locked. She kicked at the metal bar.
Jacob called water from the glasses but the mechanism was locked by magic not by mechanics. “I can’t open it!”
Henry strolled to the door and with a wave of his hand flung it open. He turned back toward them in the doorway. “Like I told Lucifer, I am not allowed to take sides. But as he chose to use his power unfairly to lock me in against my will, I choose to be freed. Let me be clear, I am not helping you, Soulkeepers. Death is a neutral party in the battle between good and evil. But should you choose to follow me through the open door, I will not prevent it.”
He turned and strolled down the hall. Mara launched herself through the closing door, pulling the other Soulkeepers and Dane along with her.
“What about the others?” Dane said, gesturing his head toward the crowd of students frozen in various states of running in the parking lot.
“I’m not strong enough to take more. No offense, Dane, but since you’re not a Soulkeeper, it’s taking a tremendous amount of energy to bring you along.” Mara was already shivering, her lips taking on a blue tinge.
“No offense taken. Just glad to be here.”
Jacob tugged them toward his truck. “Come on. He’s after Malini. Don’t worry about the others. We need to get her out of here.”
“No.” Malini stood her ground. “When I touched him, I saw inside his mind. The ark that he spoke of—it’s full of people, not animals. The increase in missing persons … it’s the Watchers, Jacob. They’re taking the weak to farm later when they’re living above ground. After they kill off all of us, they plan to live up here and in order to do that they need flesh. Human flesh. All of these people? Lucifer is just mad enough to take them all. We can’t leave them. They’re defenseless!”
“Too late,” Mara whispered. “I can’t hold it any longer.” Malini felt Mara’s icy grip drop away.
All hell broke loose in the parking lot as people returned to running and screaming. A car swerved to avoid hitting them where they stood.
Mara’s knees gave out. Malini lurched forward, breaking her fall with her arms. Jacob and Dane came to her aid, catching Mara before her head hit the concrete.
“I’m really drained, guys. I’ve got to sit down,” Mara said. Her words came out slurred.
They carried her to Jacob’s truck and propped her up in the passenger seat. Without warning, an explosion flattened them against the rusted blue exterior. Lucifer sauntered from the flames and twisted metal that were once the doors to Paris High School and pointed at Malini. “I tried to be reasonable. I tried to work with you, but you’re not worthy of me.” He held up his hands toward the night sky. “Take them! Take them all!”
Black smoke erupted in a great circle around the parking lot. When the smoke cleared, Watchers surrounded them. Malini turned, panic seizing her by the throat. People screamed, diving into the closest vehicle and locking the doors behind them. If only a simple door lock would be enough. There were twelve Watchers in all and they hadn’t even bothered to disguise themselves. They stretched their bat-like wings and surveyed the chaos with yellow snake eyes.
A rush of water flew past her into Jacob’s palm. He circled his arm, the broadsword forming in his hand as he rushed the nearest one. Malini turned frightened eyes toward Mara. Behind the windshield, her pale body slumped in the seat, her eyes focused downward toward her lap. Could she heal her? Malini looked at her left hand, flexed the fingers. There wasn’t enough time.
Dane had made it to his truck but instead of locking himself in, he pulled a length of chain from the back. As the Watcher to her left attacked Malini, Dane leapt forward and swung that chain into the side of its reptilian head.
As scared as she was, she couldn’t run and leave Dane, who wasn’t even a Soulkeeper, bravely fighting her battle. Black blood oozed down the Watcher’s temple. The creature snatched up the end of the chain and yanked Dane forward into its talons. He screamed and that’s when Malini moved in.
Left hand extended, she closed the space between them, landing her healing palm over the creature’s face. The burning was instantaneous but she held it firm, willing the thing dead. It hissed and clawed at her wrist. It was enough for Dane to get free. Blood dripped from the back of her arm where the talons dug in. It was her blood that saved her. A drip fell on the creature’s chest and the Watcher dissolved into a rancid fog.
She turned back toward Dane. He’d taken on another Watcher
. Jacob was fighting three more. And, to her relief, Gideon, Dr. Silva, and Lillian had arrived and were holding off the other seven. But they were tiring, and her wrist had already healed itself. Besides, she could only bleed on one at a time and her healing hand was scorched. She needed help and she knew just where to get it.
Digging her fingers into her elbow, she peeled back the glove from her right hand. She extended her skeletal hand in front of her, reaching out with that new part of herself that felt each corpse buried beneath the earth. There was a cemetery less than a mile from the school. She could feel it.
Her power hooked in and she retracted her fingers, pleading, beckoning the dead to come to her aid. They responded, their plodding pace drawing nearer as she pulled-pulled with her bone fingers.
Jacob’s sword sliced the neck of a Watcher to her right, but she did not lose focus. Sweat dripped down her face and her gut cramped as the heat of her power flamed within her. Still she pulled. And then they arrived.
The dead of Paris were in various states of decay. Some were skeletons, held together by her magic and nothing more. Some looked freshly dead except for a dangling eyeball or an ear dripping maggots. But it was the ones in the middle that were terrifying. Half decomposed, they dragged their decaying flesh toward the Watchers, pawing, clawing at the black flesh. The Watchers were stronger, tossing the zombies aside easily, but the dead were many and they kept coming.
Malini fell to her knees in the parking lot, the red dress ripping against the pavement. She was soaked in sweat, panting with the effort. And she was burning alive. Blisters bubbled up from her right arm, across her chest and neck and down her left.
She watched a dead man sink its teeth into a scaly black neck. Jacob took advantage of the distraction. One-two-three heads rolled past her. Dr. Silva landed a ball of fiery energy in another and it dissolved in the purple magic. Gideon plowed a fist into yet another. The effect was the same as her blood, the Watcher evaporated. The parking lot filled with the smell of rotting, burning flesh.
Burning flesh … her flesh. Malini collapsed to the concrete and watched her zombies succeed in pulling apart two more Watchers. And just as she was about to lose consciousness, she heard Lillian’s war cry, and watched her knife sail into the last Watcher’s head.
The last thing she heard before she released the dead was Jacob’s scream. “Nooooo!”
Then everything went dark.
Chapter 29
Sacrifice
Mara’s arms were useless weights in her lap. At least she’d succeeded in texting Dr. Silva for help. She’d seen them arrive: Dr. Silva in a pillar of smoke, Gideon in a ray of light, and Lillian with her staff.
Crap! What was Malini doing? The bones of her right hand bent at the fingers. Was she gesturing for Mara to come? She couldn’t. She was too weak.
Mara sank deeper into the seat when she saw them come. The zombies were something out of a nightmare. Decaying flesh fell from the bones as they plodded toward the Watchers. Holy shit, that hand of Malini’s could raise the dead!
Sweat cascaded down Malini’s skin. She’d raised an army. Over thirty zombies had descended on the parking lot. But the battle was taking time, time that bubbled in second- and third-degree burns across Malini’s flesh. She couldn’t keep this up for long.
Lillian slid her knife into the last Watcher’s head and Mara thought that it was over. But then two things happened at once: Lucifer, who had disappeared after calling in the Watchers, reappeared, grabbed Dane, and dematerialized in a puff of black smoke, and Malini, who had fallen to the concrete moments before, stopped breathing.
“Nooooo!” Jacob yelled.
The zombies retreated back to their graves as Malini lay limp. The skin of her arms, shoulders, and torso was black and peeling, her hair wet from her own sweat. But she was dead. Mara knew it as much as she knew her own heart was still beating. Her body was too still.
Jacob fell on his knees next to her, feeling for her pulse. “She doesn’t have one,” Mara said to the windshield.
He started CPR. Two breaths, thirty chest compressions, two breaths, thirty chest compressions. The other Soulkeepers had formed a half-circle around them, hands folded helplessly as they wondered if the last Healer was dead. And Mara knew she was.
From the west, Henry appeared, pupils red with burning flames. He walked hesitantly toward Malini, and Mara knew what he would do. He was there to take her soul, to move her on to Heaven or Hell. That is what Death did. Mara looked at her bell. Death stopped for no one. Her Soulkeeper power couldn’t delay the inevitable.
Jacob breathed into Malini again. He needed more time. Until Death took her soul there was still a chance they could revive her.
Mara opened the car door, sliding out of the passenger’s seat and onto shaky legs. She had to do something. And the only other power Mara ever had to wield had nothing to do with being a Soulkeeper.
With what little energy she could muster, she ran to Henry, thrusting herself in front of that fiery gaze and throwing her arms around his neck. She ignored his look of surprise and planted her lips on his, pressing her body against him. She ran her nails through the back of his hair, licked her tongue across the crack of his lips, and pressed her hips against his.
Henry responded, his arms circling her waist. And when he did, she could feel the death creep into her. The coldness seeped into her lips first, then down her torso, her legs, her toes. She was dying. But what a way to die! She’d never felt this passion, this want for anyone. In the back of her mind she knew that what she had done was suicide, but it was more important that Malini live. There were other Horsemen, but only one Healer.
The icy death filled her and then she was falling, slipping away into black nothingness in the arms of Death himself.
* * * * *
Jacob was running out of air. Part of the problem was he’d started crying, which distracted him from the CPR. He couldn’t lose her. He knew the world needed Malini; she was the last Healer. But he needed her more. He was her other half and no matter what she said about him having a choice, it didn’t seem so. If he lost her, he’d lose himself. He knew that now.
He was faintly aware of Mara running past him. Counting, he pressed his hands into Malini’s chest and tried to ignore the way the burnt skin shifted under the pressure. One of his tears fell from his face and landed on her chest. He didn’t care if anyone saw him cry. This was the absolute worst thing that could ever happen.
Where the tear fell, the blackened skin faded to gray. Another tear dropped and then another. The spot turned pink. Jacob stared at that pink spot. More tears fell: more pink spots. Of course! Water healed her!
With everything he had he called it from the ground, scooping her into his arms as springs gushed from cracks in the pavement and washed over him. He rocked her gently. The water flowed, washing away the black, and then the gray, and then the pink, until they were soaked to the bone and Malini was whole again. And then, as the water receded to its place in the ground, she gasped.
Jacob had never heard a more beautiful sound than the air rushing into her lungs. He pulled her into his chest. He should’ve been embarrassed that he was weeping like a baby, but for some reason it didn’t seem to matter at all. Pulling back, he ran his hand over her dripping hair and met her wide, golden stare.
“Are they gone?” she stammered.
“Yes,” Jacob said, “You did it. You killed them all.”
She licked her lips, seeming to notice for the first time that she was wet and in Jacob’s arms.
“Malini, you said that I wasn’t your purpose. You’re wrong. I know we have a choice. I don’t think a person’s destiny is forced on them. But you are my destiny, Malini, because I choose you. And not just because we can heal each other or because of some symbol on a strip of paper. I choose you because every part of me knows that it’s right that we’re together. It’s not how it has to be, but it’s how it’s supposed to be.”
She raised her left hand
and placed it on his cheek. “And so it will be,” she said. “Because I choose you, too.”
His lips met hers. For some reason, at that moment, Jacob had a vision of a dark-haired woman in front of a loom. She was tying a knot in the cloth she was weaving. By the way the thread was wrapped and pulled, he knew this knot could never be undone.
Epilogue
When the Paris Daily newspaper came out after prom, the headline read School Bombed: One Missing. An unidentified man had held a student hostage and bombed the school before fleeing. The students, who were hysterical and dressed like angels and demons, had varying, although equally confusing, stories about what had happened. Police blamed their fuzzy memories on the stress of the event.
In a gothic Victorian home on Rural Route One, five Soulkeepers sat around a coffee table knowing the truth. The real reason for the memory gaps was Dr. Silva’s tea, administered to each student before they were allowed to leave. Dane Michaels wasn’t simply missing; he was taken. And a girl named Mara, who none of the students had ever heard of, had given her life to give the world a chance.
“We never found her body,” Lillian said hopefully.
Gideon shook his head. “Mara is dead, Lillian; Death took her. You don’t come back from Death’s hand.”
“What about Dane? Do you think Lucifer took him to Nod? Should we go after him?” Jacob asked.
“I doubt it. Lucifer knows Dane is special to you. He wants to use him as bait. It’s you he wants, Malini,” Gideon said.
Malini flexed her right hand within her flesh glove. She looked at them with resolve. “I know what needs to be done,” she said. The entire morning she’d sifted through miles of fabric on the other side. The woven choices running through her fingers, the past and present, laid out for her to see. Panctu spoke the truth. She could see the future, or several possible futures, in their strands.
She stood, rubbing her hands together in front of her chest. It wasn’t logical that she should be their leader. She had the least experience of anyone. But she’d been born for this. “We need to reopen the school in Eden. Lucifer will be back and he will be stronger than ever. He’ll find a way to translate the list. We need to find the other Soulkeepers for their protection and for ours. The school will be a safe place to get organized until we know what we’re up against.”
